November 21, 2009 14:11 PM

Gunmen Storm Village And Torch Civilian Homes In Southern Philippines

COTABATO (PHILIPPINES), Nov 21 (Bernama) -- Several gunmen stormed a village in the southern Philippines Friday night and torched the houses, forcing terrified civilians to flee, police said on Saturday.

Nearly 40 armed men linked to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) burned three homes of civilians as they stormed Upper Sepaka village in the township of Surallah in south Cotabato province, China's Xinhua news agency cited deputy provincial police commander Senior Superintendent Jose Calimutan, as saying here.

Additional soldiers and policemen were deployed in the area to hunt down the attackers.

A village chieftain was killed in an ambush in the same village last week.

Earlier this week, around 300 Muslim rebels belonging to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front were sighted in remote village in nearby town of T'boli.

On August last year, MILF rebels staged series of attacks on civilian communities when the peace talks between them and the government collapsed after the Supreme Court stopped the signing of a memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain.

The MOA-AD would have paved the way for the setting up of an autonomous state for the MILF composed of areas, which the rebel group had claimed as the Muslims' ancestral domain.

Once signed, both sides are expected to work towards a final peace deal.

-- BERNAMA

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